May update

Achocha Lady’s Slipper (cyclanthera pedata)

 

I haven't sown these this year yet - I have grown them before so I will sow them with some students after half term

 

Alliums

 

Babington Leek (allium ampeloprasum babingtonii)                     

Stamme onions

Egyptian Walking onion Catawissa allium cepa proliferum

 

the Babington Leeks and EWOs are in my Hugelkultur bed - and the Stamme onions are in my Gertrude Franck bed and all are looking good. Some of the Babington and EWOs were given to my good chum for her plot.

 

Broad Beans

Vitelotte 

Unknown Variety

 

Not sown these, I am going to save them for an undercover winter 2012/13 crop

 

French Beans

Major Cooke 

Bonne Bouche

Cherokee Trail of Tears

Succotash

Magpie

Madeira Maroon

Edamame

Swedish One Dot

 

The climbers and will be sown next week and grown up my Munty Frames - I still have work to do on getting the frames all back up again this year. Magpie, Edamame and Swedish One Dot were sown yesterday and are in the Gertrude Franck bed.

 

Runner beans

Mrs Connell’s Black 

Will be sown in a week for a later Runner Bean harvest

 

Corn

Painted Mountain

I have sown some of these at one of my schools, and the teachers are looking forward to using the cobs for art next term. The problem with schools and sweetcorn is that they generally aren't there when it matures so we sow it later for a Sept crop - but these guys finish earlier so we opted for the decorative type. 

 

Herb

Borage

Dill 

Quillquiña = Bolivian Coriander

Rocket

Turkish Rocket (Bunias orientalis).

Lovage

Flat Leaved Parsley

Sorrel Belleville

Dill, Lovage and Parsley was sown yesterday - the rest will be sown and dotted around the plot over the next fortnight.

 

Kale 

Both varieties will be sown after half term. 

Lettuce

Grandpa Admire’s

Pommee Brune d’Hiver

Pink

Pink is already sown, and the others are being sown a pinch at a time and will be grown at the plot. 

 

Parsnip

Avon Resistor 

 

Sown yesterday in the Gerturde Franck bed

 

Peas and Mangetout

Golden Sweet mangetout 

King Tut/Pran’s Pea 

Magnum Bonum

Paula

Salmon-Flowered Pea 

Skånsk Märgärt

Stephen’s Pea 

Suttons Purple Podded 

 

Lots of peas! Goldensweet is sown in the GF bed - the others will be sown over the next few weeks at the plot. 

 

Pepper, Chilli

Alberto’s Locoto, a Rocoto pepper

Chilli de Cayenne 

Small Unnamed Chilli 

Anaheim Chilli

Pepper, Sweet

Napier Pointy Red 

 

All of these were sown at school and the ones that we don't grow will be sold at Ryton Gardens' Chilli day on behalf of the students that have grown them. I am having one of each in my greenhouse though! The small unnamed chilli wasn't happy though and these did not survive. the Cayenne weren't sown this year. 

 

Pumpkin/Squash

Hungarian Zucchini

Georgia Candy Rooster Squash 

Waltham - butter nut squash

Zapallito Squash 

 

Candy Roaster and Zapalitto I supplied - and I have herds of these growing now in all my schools..the others will be sown over the next fortnight. 

 

Tomato

Alpatieva 905A

Beijing Yellow

Delhi

Demidov

Dwarf Mr Snow  

Early Tanana

Eli

Green Bell Pepper

He-man rootstock,

Koralik 

Korol Rannikh  

Latah

Michael Pollan

Monkeys Ass

Plumpton King

Prairie Fire 

Yellow Out Red In

Red Pear

Slovienian Black

Tasmanian Chocolate Dwarf

T.C. Jones 

Vova Yellow 

 

All these were sown and are growing well, at home, at the lottie, at some schools and I am giving the rest away this week as I am running out of space in the greenhouse.

 

True Potato Seed

Blue Belle TPS                          

 

Not sown this year - just didn't get time/space.

 

 

Spring Cabbage Durham Early

 

will be sown in a couple of weeks. 

 

Tzimbalo Solanum Caripense

 

These were sown and all are growing well - will be growing them at home, at the lottie and at schools. 

 

Sweet Peas [mainly pink]

Helianthus Sungold

 

These 2 haven't been sown yet - will be in the next 2 weeks. 

 

I am away from home for a few days to miss the Jubilee - so all the remaining seeds that I intend to sow will be going in as soon as I am back - the person looking after our house isn't good with watering [will probably drown them] so I am hesitating in sowing too many in the greenhouse with all this stonking hot weather. 

Here is a photo of the netting that I have made this year - it's on the Munty frame but needs fixing at the edges and the first batch of beans is ready to go in later this week.

Plant fair

Our haul from today

More paper pots

Just more pots...

2012 Bean sowing

So - a few weeks back I sowed:
Cranberry CFB
Lablab beans
and some Moonlight and White Lady runners - got 1 Moonlight and 3 White Lady runners to germinate - out of new packets. Big wow.

All the cranberry and lab lab ones came up. Bearing in mind these are self saved by other gardeners - and not even guaranteed fresh - this makes me even more keen to stick to swapped seed.

Anyway - today's sowings are
all 6 of my Hopi Yellow - these have been put into vermiculite in a plastic bag and will be put into the airing cupboard to try and encourage them to germinate - I have no idea how old these are but I suspect 10 years at least. Fingers crossed. 

Flavert - one of my favourite DFB - I am growing quite a few so have put them into a sprouter and will remove and plant up as each germinates. All my own fresh seed from last year.

Into pots/modules/root trainers have gone:
CFB -
Cranberry Lilac
Trionfo Violetto
Purple King
Veitch's
Kentucky Wonder
Coco bianco

DFB -
Minodor
Dapple Grey
Flavert from another year's batch
Black Valentine
Canadian Wonder
Anasazi
Coco De Paimpol

Bush -
Italian Rose
Scarlet Beauty
Vermont Appaloosa
Blue Jay
Littlefield's Special

And 2 off the wall ones:
Walawi Red Bean - originally from Zambia
Mystery bean 

I'll do another batch in a week or two - it's about the space and timing the beans to be in the plot around the time when they are not going to be affected by wind burn...which can put them back weeks.

Tar Heel Beans - these I am still trying to get to germinate - although my good chum has managed it I am due to try again in a few weeks.

Tar Heel Beans

Taking Candy from a Dog - Video and Book

I've not written this - but a good chum has...


It's been out a while but a new video accompanies it so I'm just posting a link to that.

Taking Candy from a Dog

It's mesmerizing and brilliant.

the book is available from blackheathbooks

Washout - paper pots

Well, I'd love to post something interesting but it's been such a washout few weeks, with very little going on that I have nothing.

Well, apart from paper pots. If I made one pot last week I made 100.

Which basically means, that's all I did last week with all the classes that I joined.

So - paper pots. There are loads of designs but I've found that the best one is this:

Take a sheet of A4 paper. One that is for the scrap box, naturally.

Have it on the desk or table in front of you - portrait style

fold in half - the bottom comes up to meet the top.

 Then fold in half again, like a book.

 Half open up and bring the crease of the fold down to meet the table to make a triangle/arrow

Like this.

 Then flip the paper

 Do the same again with the other crease

 And you have an arrow with folds visible.

 You need to refold the triangle so that no folds are visible, which means turning the page like a book on one half - flipping it and turning the other page like a book.

You should have flat paper on both sides

 Then - and there are various methods of doing this but the simplest is: Fold the right 1/3 over to the middle, and then the left over to the middle leaving the middle strip.
Like so:

 And so:

Flip over and do the same again.

If you now fold the top flaps down, and into your pot, and open the inside up you have a paper pot.

You can either fill it immediately - like so [with seeds or plants]

Or you can make a larger pot by folding less to the middle and store all your pots 'flatpack' style until you are ready to use them.

Hugelkultur

If you don't know what this is - then perhaps have a quick read of this link  http://www.permaculture.co.uk/readers-solutions/small-scale-hugelkultur-raised-beds

So, we had some spare old wood and this part of the plot is at the boundary with the neighbour who has put spiky trees right up to the boundary [why we don't know but anyhow]...it spikes us every time we walk up our path so I wanted to do some work on making at least one into a permaculture bed. Putting 2 and two together - I opted for a Hugelkultur style bed.

I dug the soil out of this bed [strip by strip] and put the old wood underneath. The wood had come from some stuff they were chucking away [well, were going to burn] at Ryton last year, and stuff from our decking at home that had rotted and wouldn't take screws [I originally wanted to use the bits to make 2 raised beds] so under this soil is, basically, rotting wood. I have put the clay soil back on top of the wood, and used home made compost on top of that. The crops that are going in here are mainly ones that can be furtled and some left insitu to grow back next year. So, Yacon, potato onions, and Egyptian walking onions are in first. I'll nab some Jerusalem Artichokes, and I'll plant it up with some perennial herbs as well and we shall see how it fares. I've put 3 potatoes in as well, as they were found in the compost heap and had already started sprouting.